Lost
by twosugarsblack
Summary: In the midst of returning home during her summer vacation, Chihiro is swept back into the spirit world only to find that it is far from how she left it. With the bathhouse in shambles, the staff enslaved by a horrific dark entity, Yubaba gone, and Haku missing and presumed dead, Chihiro is the spirits' last hope of setting things right again. If only she could remember why.
1. Secret Keeping

"You wanna know a secret?"

The coed looked over at her littlest sister with a smirk. "Maybe. It won't be a secret then though," she pointed out conspiratorially.

The eight-year-old grinned. "Can you keep it?"

"You know I can."

"Chinami, you don't have secrets," the nearby ten-year-old groaned, kicking at a patch of wildflowers as her arms tightened into a knot over her chest. "You just want attention."

Chinami, however, thought differently. Wrinkling her nose in the middle child's general direction, she turned back to the young woman sitting beside her. She shifted close and leaned up to whisper in her ear when a shower of grass blades fell over them. Chinami shrieked and jumped up to run after their angsty assailant. "Chiasa!"

"Careful, guys!" the oldest called as the children romped around the field, their home standing tall like a stone guardian on the hill behind them.

"Stop worrying, Chihiro!" Chiasa called back, her voice bouncing back through the glade.

Chihiro smiled a little, absently toying with a purple hair tie on her wrist. "I wish I could," she murmured as she watched her siblings galavant around, shrieking with laughter.

She glanced over her shoulder, back at the house, and saw her dad standing outside the back door, smiling as he watched them in the yard. "Girls! Dinner!" he called across the distance, Chinami and Chiasa perking up and sprinting up the hill. Chihiro followed in their wake and, when she reached the back door, her dad patted her on the back. "It's good to have you home, Chihiro."

She smiled, an east wind stirring her chestnut locks. "It's good to be home."

* * *

The day before, Chihiro had taken the first short span of her summer vacation to visit her hometown, a place she hadn't been in just over ten years now. The train ride from university had been a long one fraught with anxiety over whether or not she and Rumi would click like they used to. While the initial reunion and perhaps the first hour had been awkward, as soon as the topic of old names from grade school, their families, and college courses came up in conversation, it was as if they'd never parted ways.

They had taken their old walking trail from the schoolyard toward their houses after horsing around on the playground and receiving both humored and perturbed glances from parents watching their children. As they'd passed familiar houses now either spruced up with new paint or worn down by weather and age, Rumi had finally asked about the question Chihiro always loathed. Mostly because the frequency at which it was asked was entirely too high.

" _So_ ," Rumi had started in and, by her tone alone, Chihiro had known what she was in for. It was that half-giggly bubble of a tone teeming with intention and not too much thought apart from the simple want to know. "Any _boys_ catching your eye on campus?"

Chihiro grimaced a little. "Rumi," she scolded softly. "No."

"Oh, come on," her friend had groaned. "Lighten up, I had to ask!"

"I know, everyone does," Chihiro reasoned. "I'm just frustrated, I guess."

"Like… _Frustrated_?" Rumi giggled.

" _No_ ," Chihiro had laughed, kicking leaves at her friend. "I just can't _like_ anyone. I've tried! A few times and… I just keep feeling like I'm forgetting something important."

Rumi frowned a little and started to respond before realizing where they were. "Hey! We almost passed your old house!"

Chihiro jerked as she stopped abruptly, looking over and seeing her childhood home just past them, connecting to the sidewalk. She looked to Rumi, who grinned and took off around the house toward the backyard. "Rumi! Stop, we'll get in trouble!"

"Oh, come on!" Rumi laughed. "I've been past here, these people are never home!"

Chihiro hesitated before shouting, "Hey, wait up!" and hurrying along behind her friend. She joined her friend around the side and grimaced a bit at the apartment complex towering the length of an American football field away. The Kohaku River had run through there once, just past the edge of the property, but it had since been drained for building space at its end. She remembered falling in it once, but not much past that.

"Hurry up then!"

Chihiro snapped out of her reverie before hurrying to catch up with Rumi, who had made her way down to the vague path the dried up river had been reduced to, filled with gravel so no kids injured themselves in the ravine.

When Chihiro was once again at Rumi's side, she went back to their earlier topic. "So, when you say you feel like you're forgetting something… Do you mean you're forgetting some _one_?"

"I wish I knew. It just feels so muddled, like a dream from years ago that I didn't take time to write down," Chihiro murmured. "I don't think about it too much, but every once in a while, it comes back and it's just as frustrating as the first time."

"Maybe you crushed on someone in grade school and you're not over them," Rumi teased lightly before gasping. "Maybe you're like star-crossed lovers or something! Oh, Chihiro, why didn't you tell me?!"

"Now you're just making stuff up, Rumi!"

"Yeah, I know," Rumi admitted with a laugh. "But I like the idea of that. Besides, maybe there was someone."

"I'd like to think that if I cared that much about someone, I would remember them," Chihiro muttered, tiring of the subject and quickly. They had reached the end of the old river, past the edge of the apartment complex where it dipped into a dry pit. Chihiro looked down at the pit and crouched down to poke at a rock protruding out of the gravel. "Sad old thing, isn't it?"

Rumi nodded. "Really is."

Chihiro sighed and shook her head, reaching down to run her hand over the dirt of the old riverbank.

Rumi thought pensively for a minute before she shrugged. "I don't know about your dilemma. But maybe you just haven't remembered yet. Once you meet someone, you never really forget them."

Something about the words rang familiar bells for Chihiro and she frowned. "What did you—AGH!"

"Chihiro, are you okay?!"

Chihiro wasn't sure. In fact, she wasn't even sure what had happened. She'd barely brushed the dirt with her fingertips and a sharp pain had lanced up her arm, spiraling through her veins like a burst of heat. She'd jerked her hand back, akin to the reaction she'd had from touching a stove burner when she was six. Reflex. "I…," she faltered. "I'm fine. Must've hit a rock."

"Now I'm having a heart attack," Rumi groaned. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Chihiro nodded once, taking one more glance at the old riverbank before following Rumi away. As Rumi rambled on about a boy she liked in her film class, Chihiro flexed her hand and looked to see if she'd been cut or scraped or…something. The sensation lingered, but it was just a memory now.

 _Just a memory._

She frowned and rubbed her fingers against her thumb, the sensation slick. _My fingers are wet… But how? That river has been dried up for years._

Blaming rain or some other such coincidence, Chihiro forgot about the sting and the moisture and the strange way Rumi's words haunted her mind, diverting to other more interesting things of the moment like the ice cream shop Rumi had suggested just then. "Don't worry so much, Chihiro, sweets help."

Chihiro had wished that people would stop telling her not to worry so much. It just made her worry more. However, her friend was right about one thing. Sweets always helped.

* * *

After dinner, Chiasa and Chinami insisted on romping through the backyard again, this time with a kickball. Chihiro wasn't sure whether sticking close or keeping a distance kept her safer, but chanced both in effort to keep an eye on them with the glow of the porch light illuminating just so far over the yard.

Chinami gave the ball a mighty kick before her eyes widened and she turned to Chihiro. "Chihi— _oof_!" A kick from Chiasa had clocked Chinami with the ball squarely in the face, knocking her off her feet as Chiasa laughed hysterically nearby. Chihiro had to try her best not to laugh. "You all right, Nami?"

The girl sniffled, a pink gridded imprint of the ball on her left cheek. "Yeah…"

Chiasa unhelpfully fell over in the grass nearby, still breathless from laughing.

Chihiro smiled and shook her head, walking over to Chinami and sitting down in the grass. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Chinami said with a nod. "I remembered the secret I was going to tell you."

"Oh?" Chihiro said with a dash of interest that was mostly for Chinami's benefit.

Chinami nodded seriously. "I found a cave."

"A cave?" Chihiro repeated, tilting her head. "What kind of cave?"

"Not a rock cave, it looks like a door," Chinami insisted. "And there's a weird statue in front of it."

 _Why is this familiar?_ "What kind of weird statue?"

Chinami frowned and struggled for the right words before her face lit up. "Come on! I'll show you!"

"Maybe in the morning—hey! Chinami!" The little girl had scrambled up and bolted to the edge of the yard toward the path that connected to the road around the side of the house. Chihiro leapt to her feet and ran after her. "Get back here!"

"Come on, Sen!" Chinami shouted and she already sounded too far away.

Chihiro sprinted harder, not understanding how it was this hard for her to keep up with an eight-year-old. "Wait!"

The little girl's laughter ghosted through the dark, winding through the trees back to Chihiro's ears, making goosebumps form on her arms that she didn't notice because she was trying too hard to not trip. Chihiro pursed her lips and pulled out her phone, turning on the flashlight function and igniting the area in front of her, long shadows extending from the trunks of trees all around her like a web. "Chinami!"

Chihiro ran harder when she didn't hear a response, glancing over her shoulder when she suddenly hit something about half her size and _hard_. The wind was knocked out of her and she grimaced, feeling like she'd run into a boulder. Chihiro shot the flashlight beam at whatever she was slumped over, finding that it was a stout statue.

When its face lit up under the beam of her phone, she shrieked and scrambled off it, crab-walking away a few paces. She got a hold of herself and stood up, brushing the dirt off her shorts and then shining the beam forward again at the grinning face. _Creepy_ … "Chinami, where are you?!" she called into the night.

No reply.

Chihiro shrieked again when her phone suddenly rang in her hand and she turned off the light and answered it. "Hello?"

"Chihiro, where are you?" her mother asked.

"Chinami ran off and I—"

"Chinami's home," her mom said impatiently.

"…Oh," she murmured with a frown, glancing around. "I see."

"Look, if you wanted to go out, that's fine, just be straight with me, okay? You're old enough now to…" Chihiro started tuning out the speech that was ensuing, having heard it all before because it was a rare time that her mom took her word for things. Chihiro looked around and it was only after she'd turned in a full circle that she saw a doorway of sorts in a wall behind her. _A wall…_ "Are you listening to me, Chihiro?"

"N-No. I mean, yes!" Chihiro scrambled before sighing. "Sorry. I'll be home in a while. I really did think Chinami ran off though."

Her mom sighed. "All right. Be safe."

"I will," Chihiro murmured before ending the call, turning the flashlight beam back on and shining it into the doorway. A long hall panned out before her and she worried her lower lip.

 _Why is this familiar?_ she asked herself again.

Of their own accord it seemed, her feet began to move forward, taking her down the tunnel. Chihiro swallowed hard and her wrist felt heavy with only her purple hair tie spanning it, but she felt like she knew, ultimately, where she was going.

She was beginning to question the credibility of her instincts.

Chihiro reached the end of the tunnel at last and could feel her eyes widen.

 _A… A marketplace?_


	2. Happy Returns?

As soon as she passed through the maw of the tunnel, Chihiro underwent a bout of sensory overload, the sight of the marketplace with its red canopies and uniform wooden structures all bathed in lantern light and the overflow of scents mingling with perfect unity in the air in savory and sweet bands of temptation. She had never before smelt anything that made her salivate so immediately without hesitation.

She was instantly wary of it.

Aside from the anxiety she often wore like armor to deflect any and all "worst case" scenarios, the marketplace seemed far too surreal to enable her to relax while being in its midst. Only after she'd set foot past the archway's shadow had her ears been filled with the loud conglomeration of voices, the sizzle of food on hot pans, and the shouts of vendors, which were collectively loud enough that she should have heard them long before.

Despite the parts of her that encouraged her to step back into the safety of the tunnel and head back toward home, her feet took her forward and she could feel the warmth generating from the multitude of bodies and burners in the area. It made her sweat uncomfortably, but she couldn't help but keep going.

 _I just ate dinner, I shouldn't be so hungry_ , she thought rationally as her mouth filled again with drool that she swallowed against the savory scents invading her nostrils and throat. The notes were suffocatingly thick, but her body reacted to them like a hit of heroin.

 _None of this makes sense_ , she thought nervously and it was only when she finally took a glance at the people rather than the piles upon piles of meats, cheeses, sweets, and pastries that she realized precisely why.

"A frog?" she heard herself murmur under her breath, which had been stolen by shock as she took in the nearest vendor toting a tray of small pies who was, in the most serious sense, a frog with an apron and paper hat. Chihiro shook her head. "I'm losing my mind. I hit my head."

"Oh, dear, are you all right?" asked a female voice beside her in response to her rhetorical comment.

"Oh, yes, sorry, I just—" Chihiro tried her best not to balk when she turned and saw the fish-faced creature beside her with a bright kimono and lipstick to match. "I'm just dizzy," she quickly finished.

The fishy woman—or womanly fish?—nodded knowingly. "Might be the steam. Sets me in a tizzy sometimes, too."

"Right… Thank you," Chihiro quickly said before weaving through the crowd, trying to find a way out and dodging vendors the entire way as they pushed trays of goods in her face. Frantically shouting "no, thank you" at each one, Chihiro finally broke through the crowd when she reached a bridge. She heaved in a breath, grateful for the cool air that skimmed off the water nearby as the ferry pulled in. Straightening up, she gazed over the stalls draped in red and then allowed herself to turn and follow the line of shops until it ended at the riverside. The black, night-cloaked water glimmered dismally with lantern light only so far as the light was able to reach. The untouched pane of black water stretched on either side of the bridge, the tiny lanterns burning at each stake across its arch only enough to illuminate the boards and the figures crossing them. The bridge arched at length toward one of the most ominous structures Chihiro had ever seen.

Innumerably floored and inarguably unforgiving, the tiered building glowed crimson with firelight from the inside and outside, red paper lanterns slung across the spines of pitch black roofs that seemed to absorb any light that touched them. Chihiro's heart clenched with a thin recognition, but it was all overshadowed by dread. This was an evil place, even if it hadn't always been. A faint tug in her chest told her it hadn't.

Chihiro startled as someone bumped shoulders with her in passing, heading toward the edge of the bridge. The most "jolly" aspect of this strange new world was the ferry, aglow in fairy lights of gold along each edge. However, she noticed soon enough that the ferry was empty; no one boarded and no one disembarked. It just floated on the black water toward the dock like it was rigged on clockwork. She craned her head to see it, wondering where it came from and where it would go now. Why wasn't anyone boarding?

She joined the dense crowd on the bridge and, the moment her shoe tapped the first board, she felt a disturbance move through the mob. Murmurs slithered through the mouths of the strange creatures and, finally as the murmurs reached the back of the group, Chihiro could distinguish that the word was "human."

Instinctively, she murmured it, too, and the confusion throughout the crowd continued, all shapes and manners of heads turning and swiveling to scan the group far too packed to make out specific faces. _But what are you, then?_ she wondered as she tried to blend in with them all, some of whom looked almost human.

"Come on, move it!" a creature behind them cried and other cries went up with it as suddenly there were new additions to the group being pushed into those filling the bridge. A few creatures cried out indignantly as they were forced to amble forward and Chihiro narrowly avoided being squashed between two large fish creatures when the mob became uproarious. "Get out of the way if you're just going to stand there!"

Chihiro stumbled a little and dodged around a furry black giant, but ended up bumping hard into one of the more human looking creatures—monsters? Spirits?—and nearly sending them both over were it not for the compactness of the mob. "Sorry!"

"I'll say, watch it!" the woman snapped. She wore a coral smock and had long brown hair down her back. When the woman turned to throw her a dirty look, she paused before doing a double-take. "…Say… Do I know you?"

Chihiro blinked. "I don't—" However, she paused and gave the woman a closer look. "…I'm actually not sure. What's your name?"

The woman glanced at her suspiciously. "It's—hey, watch it, numskull," she shouted at the black furry creature Chihiro had noticed earlier as it clipped her head with its elbow. She turned her attention back to Chihiro. "It's Lin."

Chihiro's eyes widened a little. "I can't say why, but I feel like I do know y—hey!" She felt the bridge lurch and an abrupt mass of shouts went up from the crowd. Lin glanced down at the boards and Chihiro noticed then the vivid purple shadows under her eyes and the pale pallor of her face. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks.

As the creatures continued to startle at new sounds coming from the bridge, Lin's eyes raised and caught on the purple hair tie encircling her slender wrist. She snatched Chihiro's wrist to examine the band with an expression of shock, a half-protest crossing Chihiro's lips. Lin looked up at Chihiro's face again and came uncomfortably close, examining her features like an archaeologist would a newly excavated and promising find. If possible, her eyes widened further. "S-Sen?"

Chihiro felt a jolt work through her. "…That's," she hesitated, "…not my name…" _But what if it was? Once…_

Lin was about to speak when the bridge cracked down the middle from the weight and dozens of creatures—including Lin and Chihiro—were sent into the dark water below. Chihiro broke the surface and felt as if ice had crawled past her skin, her body seizing from the chill. She quickly flailed her limbs to work up to the surface again, her flesh aching as invisible pins and needles scraped her musculature.

When her head broke the surface, she inhaled a ragged breath only to be pushed down again by someone trying to hold themselves up. The sound was muted beneath the water, but she vaguely heard a voice shout, "Get off of her!" before she was hauled up by her arm out of the enveloping current.

Chihiro let whoever had her pull her along as she lost feeling in her limbs, hearing more clearly only as the crowd's clamor of noise fell behind them with distance. "Sen! Listen to me, you need to get out of here, it's not safe," Lin was saying, urging her to swim on her own as she swam for both of them.

"My name isn't Sen, it's Chihiro!" she insisted, though she was becoming more unsure of even the most important things by the second. "What are those people?"

Lin gave her an exhausted look as she took another armful of black water and struggled to keep them both afloat. Maybe she really hadn't slept in weeks. "They're spirits, idiot. You're in the spirit world. Again. Now swim, would ya?"

Chihiro made herself paddle through the icy water until they reached the dock. Chihiro hurriedly hauled herself onto the wooden platform, shivering intensely. Lin started to do the same, but faltered. She would've fallen back into the water had Chihiro not reached out to steady her and pull her up.

"Thanks," Lin said breathlessly, looking toward the pandemonium near the bridge, spirits starting to file out of the water. She eyed up Chihiro before nodding a little. "Chihiro, huh? I guess I do remember that now. You're bigger than last time."

"Excuse me?"

Lin laughed sadly as she shivered. "You were just a kid before." She shook her head quickly. "There's no time for this. You can't stay here. The ferry will take you wherever you need to go. Go to Zeniba's, she'll keep you safe."

"Zeniba?"

"Man, you're as thick as the first time," Lin remarked as she pushed herself to her feet. "Come on. Take this to pay your way." She pressed a rusty brown coin into Chihiro's hand. "You may have to wash the deck for the rest, but it'll get you at least half. It's all I have." She frowned. "It's good to see you again. I wish I could talk longer, but you need to go."

Chihiro had half a mind to ask more questions, but the urgency in Lin's tone and the look on her face urged her to cooperate. "Okay… Are you all right?"

"Me? Sure, don't sweat it. I'll be better when you're on your way out of here," Lin said persistently. Chihiro nodded and walked toward the glowing ferry, hesitating only halfway across the boarding ramp when she heard Lin say her name. Chihiro turned at the sound of it and looked back at the gaunt, pink-attired woman. She looked at her sorrowfully. "In the morning, go home. And don't come back."

The command caught Chihiro by surprise, but she quickly crossed the rest of the way to the ferry when the ramp began to rise. She stood by the ferry's edge until Lin motioned for her to get down and Chihiro remembered that no one seemed to use the ferry anymore. She hit the deck—literally—and remained flat against the boards as the ferry moved away from the dock and began to sail away.

Chihiro waited for what she deemed a more than reasonable amount of time before peeking over the side of the ferry. The crimson-lit building was as small as a chess pawn in the distance and she felt herself relax some when she stood up. "Zeniba's," she murmured softly, trying out the name. That sounded familiar, too. So she'd been there before. Lin's statement only solidified that deja vu-driven notion in her mind. But why didn't she remember it?

She meandered around the ferry until she found the captain, a green and white turtlesque spirit with fuzz on its lip and wrinkles for days. She timidly approached the spirit and placed the coin Lin had given her on the wood panel in front of the wheel.

The spirit glanced toward the coin with speculative eyes before looking at her. The stare lasted just long enough to make Chihiro shift unsurely between her feet before the eyes rolled way to stare ahead again with a deliberate "hmph" and a nod. She supposed that meant her payment had sufficed.

The ferry drifted for what felt like ages and Chihiro was beginning to worry that the ferry spirit wasn't taking her where she needed to go at all. However, they soon came to some land and Chihiro noticed that there were stars in the sky again, where around the marketplace and the crimson tower, the sky had been a void of darkness.

She thanked the spirit when they docked and climbed off the ferry, looking ahead at the house on the span of land amidst the sea. What appeared to be tilled soil lined the land around the house and Chihiro was careful to remain on the path between the fields so she didn't anger whatever spirit or manner of person lived there.

Chihiro startled when she heard the crumble of dirt nearby, a slight sound escaping her. Her eyes were drawn to a dark figure kneeling beside one of the fields, its head turning at her noise. The silhouetted figure regarded her momentarily before rising slowly, plucking the lantern glowing nearby from the ground and approaching at a hesitant pace. She felt her heart start pounding harder in her chest as she hoped beyond hope maybe this was Zeniba or a friendly spirit or something, but a distant memory insisted she be wary.

When the figure stopped a few feet away, it tilted its head, raising the light to better illuminate her and the area around them and, by coincidence, it as well.

The figure was, she could only guess, a spirit, too. Tall, lean, and pale with long black hair past his shoulders, the spirit was the picture of a somewhat frail young man with colored tattoos beneath dark eyes. He wore only black robes without design, his nails black on slender fingers. Chihiro noticed a band across his forehead that attached to a mask set off to the side of his head, which was bone white with markings similar to the ones on his face along with holes for the eyes and mouth.

He blinked down at her slowly before whispering, "Sen."

Chihiro shivered, but they were both soon washed by lamplight as the cabin door opened and silhouetted a stout old woman with an abnormally large head. Once Chihiro's eyes adjusted, she saw the old woman was smiling broadly. "Finally come back to see your granny, hm? You kept me waiting long enough, my dear. Come on in, both of you. We have a lot to discuss."

* * *

Note: I drew inspiration for No-Face's transformation from a bit of fan art I ran across a while back. I'd love to give credit where credit is due, but after an hour's worth of searching for the artist's credentials, I've temporarily given up. Maybe tomorrow. Hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!


	3. No-Face

Author's Note: I apologize if I've caused some of you some anxiety with the delay for this chapter. Between school, two internships, and a part-time job, it's been hectic. I'm going to try to continue the story more frequently, but in case the delay picks back up with the semester's progression... Now you know why. Regardless, I'm not planning on abandoning this story. As with my others, I'll see it through to the end. Thank you, as always, for making the journey with me.

* * *

"Kaonashi, you're making her squirm."

The black-haired man with the mask glanced toward the old woman at her gentle scolding before looking down at his lap, finally breaking the stare he'd fixed on Chihiro since her arrival. Chihiro breathed a little easier. "K-Kaonashi?" Chihiro repeated, the kanji swimming into her mind's eye. "…'No Face'?"

Kaonashi gave an incremental nod so small, she nearly missed it.

Chihiro frowned; what a dismal name to give to someone. And yet it, like so much else, felt so very familiar. She glanced toward the old woman, who eyed her solemnly. When they locked eyes, the woman said, "You're going to want to eat something, my dear. You're thinning."

"What?" Chihiro mumbled, following the woman's gaze to her hand. A cry choked her as she saw the table through her hand. "What's happening?!"

"You're a human in a spirit world, you have to eat or you'll disappear," she said patiently. "Go on, have whatever you like, but I would hurry if I were you."

Chihiro quickly snatched up an apple from a plate of fruit upon the table they were seated around and bit into it, looking down at her hand and relaxing some when it became solid again.

She chewed and looked warily at the strange spirit, Kaonashi, who shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "Why do I know you?" she asked quietly after swallowing the juicy bite.

Kaonashi just stared at her before looking to Zeniba, his breath evenly entering and exiting his body as he remained stoic.

Zeniba gave him a withering look that was almost motherly. "You can talk, you know," she informed him briskly. She glanced toward Chihiro conspiratorially. "His curse has only been lifted for a short while now. I got tired of talking to myself and he often forgets he can speak now without a host."

"Why did you call me Sen before?" Chihiro asked the man. "Someone else called me Sen, but I don't understand why."

Zeniba seemed to have developed a habit of answering for him as he remained quiet and almost shy. "Your name was Sen last time. My sister stole your name from you and gave you a new name in her service." At Chihiro's blank look, Zeniba arched a brow with interest. "You really don't remember, do you?"

Chihiro shook her head. "Why don't I?"

Zeniba stared at her for a long time before her gaze fell to the hair tie on her wrist. "You still have that?"

"My hair tie?"

"We fashioned that for you last time," Zeniba said with a smile. "Give it here." Chihiro handed her the hair tie and watched her handle it uncertainly, wondering how she could have taken something from this world and still not remember being here. Was this some kind of improvisational joke? "It's worn thin, but there is still magic here. Likely from the bonds you made last time." She handed the hair tie back. "Maybe you can renew its strength while you're here this time."

"Lin—the girl who told me to come to you—told me to leave at first light," Chihiro said as she slipped the tie back onto her wrist.

The old woman pursed her lips faintly and then gave a subtle nod. "Mm. Right. That may be best."

"Why?" she asked quietly, giving up on directing questions toward Kaonashi for the time being. He was creeping her out a little and being less than helpful.

Zeniba gave a long-winded sigh and pursed her heavily lined lips after, only parting them again when she spoke. "Much has changed since you were last here, Chihiro," she said seriously. "I wish you could remember your last visit. It concerns me what you must think of this world, only knowing it as it is now."

Chihiro glanced around furtively. "Here seems nice."

She smiled sadly. "I have done well in keeping this area untouched by Akane. Just shy of this island is where her reach ends, though she's been trying to amend that for some time now…"

"Who is Akane?"

Kaonashi was noticeably rigid with this turn of topic, even from across the room. Zeniba glanced his way briefly and seemed to measure him up before looking back to Chihiro's evermore bewildered expression. "Akane is a grand example of the darkness in our world. And a very good reason for you to leave this place before she discovers you're here."

As Kaonashi nodded emphatically, Chihiro felt a chill graze her spine. "But what is she? Who is she? Why would she be a threat to me?"

"Anyone in this world is a threat to you, my dear," Zeniba remarked flippantly, which she followed with a teasingly sinister grin. "Even me, your own granny!"

Chihiro cracked a slight smile at that and shook her head, picking at her hair tie as she waited for her questions to be answered. To her surprise, Kaonashi furtively glanced toward the cabin window and was then the one to respond.

"She is what we—you would call a demon in your world," he said so softly that Chihiro subconsciously leaned forward a bit so she could hear him better. "She and her minions overran the bathhouse shortly after you left."

"You were just a child when you were last here," Zeniba commented, looking Chihiro over as she spoke. She looked to Kaonashi to continue and, when he hesitated, she made a gruff noise in her throat that sounded impatient.

The pale boy took the hint. "She will kill you if you are lucky," he mumbled, scratching a sharp nail against his jaw. Chihiro noticed then that all of his nails were sharp like that, pointed like teardrops. He noticed her staring and put his hands in his lap.

After casting him an apologetic glance from a flushed face, Chihiro asked, "And if I'm not? Lucky, that is?"

Kaonashi didn't respond, which brought Zeniba to pick up the hovering inquiry. "She will curse you. Though you seemed fairly lucky last time. You got your parents back, after all."

"Got my parents back? What—"

"I don't understand how you can't remember anything. _I_ remember it and it wasn't _my_ ordeal," Zeniba murmured, throwing her hands up a little in defeat.

"Maybe if you put your hair up?"

Zeniba and Chihiro both looked toward Kaonashi, who looked like he would blush. His face, however, remained the pallor of bone china. "Your hair tie… It stayed with you. And you had your hair up last time… I just thought—"

"No, that's a reasonable suggestion," Zeniba agreed, patting Kaonashi's thin arm. He didn't look opposed to the contact, but also didn't seem to know how to handle it.

Chihiro shrugged and wound the tie around her hair after gathering it into a thick ponytail at the back of her skull. "So, Akane is a demon…," she murmured with concern as she finished with her hair. Somehow she did feel more settled, though it was possible that it was her imagination. "And she has minions?"

Kaonashi nodded once. Zeniba elaborated a moment later. "She feeds off nightmares. Negative energies. Her minions have taken to providing that sustenance for her with the residents of the bathhouse. Hallways my sister once kept spotless and glowing gold are now dark and dusty with only Akane's red lantern light to guide the workers. The red light induces nightmares beyond your worst expectations… At least that's what I hear."

"That explains why they all looked so tired," Chihiro murmured, thinking of Lin and the deep violet shadows under her eyes.

"Mm-hmm," Zeniba murmured, cutting into a honey-colored cake on a stand at the center of the table, placing slices on plates. "It drains them and they become afraid to sleep. Afraid to do much of anything except what they're told, really. They're just about minions, themselves."

"That's horrible," Chihiro murmured as a cake slice was placed before her.

"Certainly. You can ask Ka—well, that will be his story to tell in his own time," she mumbled.

"What happened to…" Chihiro blinked, eyes widening. "Where is Haku?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

Kaonashi's brows rose and Zeniba laughed merrily, putting another slice in front of Kaonashi. "Ah, so you're remembering now! Of course you'd remember _him_."

"The… The river. I walked past his river when I was home a few days ago," Chihiro realized softly, a wave of dread seeping into her. "Is he all right?"

Zeniba looked doubtfully at the cake as she took a piece for herself. "I wouldn't think so. No one has seen him since a day or two after you went back home with your parents," she said, sucking a bit of golden frosting from her thumb with a _pop_. "It's safe to say he's dead."

Chihiro's breath felt shortened as if a swift kick had landed to her gut. "How can you just assume he's dead because no one's seen him?" But she remembered the pain that had lanced through her arm. The water that had all but disintegrated beneath her touch. If he wasn't dead—and she could hardly entertain the thought despite remembering him only moments ago—he was injured at least.

"Oh, we all saw him," she murmured dispassionately around a bite of cake. "Flying away from the bathhouse with a rainfall of blood in his wake. He came down not far from here and Akane sent four of her followers to retrieve the body."

Chihiro's eyes stung. "How are you so blasé about this?"

"Because that is far from the worst that has happened around here," Zeniba said flatly.

"Where is Yubaba? Wouldn't she have helped him?" the younger woman asked desperately. Kaonashi regarded her with pity.

"My sister would not have helped him after the havoc he caused, at least not extensively as he would have needed," Zeniba remarked. "She's gone, too, but I at least know where she is. She retired just before Akane took over."

"That seems coincidental…"

"If you're thinking Yubaba had a hand in this, you're wrong. She took Boh and left once she completed her fortune. She left Aniyaku and Chichiyaku in charge and the fools all but fell over when Akane lurched her way in. If they even stuck around to see what she did to the place, I'd be shocked…"

Chihiro worried her lower lip, the memories coming back piece-by-piece. It seemed like with each memory of Haku she regained, the more despair she felt. "I can't leave now."

"You should," Kaonashi said and his tone first came off as unkind. He shook his head, took a bite of cake, and rephrased. "It isn't safe here. For any of us. But particularly for you."

"Well, someone has to do something," Chihiro argued, frowning at him. He shrank slightly under her look, his eyes flickering toward his plate. "Is there any chance he's alive?"

"I suppose, but he's as good as dead if he's in that place. After the trouble he caused for Akane in the beginning, she would have him dead or near-dead," Zeniba murmured, setting down her fork. "Eat. If you're going to get yourself into trouble—which I know you are—you'd better eat up."

Chihiro felt like starting to eat then would give away her plans to do exactly that, but she could tell that Zeniba saw right through her anyway, so she picked up her fork and started shoveling the sweet cake into her mouth. Zeniba gave another slight grunt of approval before yawning. "Well, tonight has been quite a night, but I'm exhausted. Goodnight, you two."

Chihiro and Kaonashi murmured, "Goodnight," back as Zeniba rose from the table, leaving her plate behind. As she passed Chihiro's chair, she patted her shoulder and murmured, "At least wait until tomorrow, dear. Rest up, eat up, the whole bit. You'll need it." Chihiro nodded her acquiescence and Zeniba smiled. "Despite the circumstances, it's good to see you, Chihiro."

Chihiro smiled. "It's good to see you, too."

* * *

Later that night, Chihiro failed to sleep. This was all so strange and alien despite how familiar it felt at once. Kaonashi had insisted she take his room while he slept in the den and Chihiro realized with a bit of unease that his bed didn't smell like anything. It was an odd thing to notice, but she supposed spirits didn't have scents like humans did. While it should have made it easier for her to sleep, she was finding that sleep had taken memory's place in evading her.

Pulling a blanket around her like a shawl, Chihiro got out of bed and ambled through the dark cabin to the front door, slipping outside and sighing with relief as a cool wind brushed her skin. Drawing the blanket more snugly around her, Chihiro walked slowly down toward the water, her bare feet skimming through the dirt which eventually became sand as she progressed to the surf. The tide had moved out with the hour and a trail of sandbars reached as far as her eyes could see, the edges glistening with moisture.

"You're not leaving?" Chihiro jumped a little and glanced accusingly over her shoulder at Kaonashi, silent as a shadow. He was abashed at her look and his gaze shifted uncomfortably sideways. "Sorry." When Chihiro didn't answer him and instead looked back toward the water, he added quietly, "Granny is right… Getting your strength up as much as you can is the only way to do this…if you're planning to go to the bathhouse."

"I didn't ask your opinion," Chihiro snapped softly. She sighed, her shoulders sagging with the exhalation. "I'm sorry. Why do I feel so irritated with you? I still don't really remember how we met."

Kaonashi looked at her more steadily now that her attention had turned toward the sea. "I wasn't quite myself for a while when you were here last. Well, I was less myself than was usual at that time."

"Zeniba mentioned that you were cursed," Chihiro pointed out, allowing the statement to hang there to see what was done with it.

"Yes."

"Who cursed you?"

He grimaced. "Akane."

Chihiro looked at him. "Were you cursed when I met you though?"

Kaonashi nodded shyly. "I was cursed for a long time. But Zeniba helped me. As much as she could."

Chihiro nodded a little back before her eyes slid back toward the tides, the pale glimmers dancing across the surface from the wide moon overhead making her dizzy. "Do you think he's dead?"

Kaonashi blinked, taking a moment to understand. "Haku?" Chihiro nodded. "I don't know." He then paused and reasoned, "Though the Akane I knew wouldn't have killed him."

"She has some level of mercy then?" Chihiro asked hopefully.

He grimaced. "The opposite."

"Oh," she murmured, a shiver rippling through her that had nothing to do with the breeze.

Kaonashi sighed. "At least there's still a chance to save him though."

"Were you friends?" she asked, wondering why he looked so troubled.

"No," he murmured. When Chihiro looked at him, waiting for him to explain, he just shrugged, not knowing what she wanted him to divulge. "I was cursed for the majority of my time here. The one time I really interacted with anyone, it was…negatively. They saw me as a monster." A pointed nail once again traced his jawline as his gaze grew distant with remembering. "Before that, I went unnoticed."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged again. "No one really acknowledged me." His clouded gaze grew more clear as he glanced toward Chihiro timidly again. "No one except you."

Chihiro frowned softly, her gaze flickering toward the tiny triangular marks under his eyes as she remembered the mask he'd had resting on his head earlier. "I remember you," she said softly and his frame grew incrementally more rigid. "I let you in the bathhouse… And…"

Kaonashi nodded once, tense as if ready for an attack. "I got out of control."

"Right," Chihiro murmured, pondering the returning memories. "But then you came back."

He blinked. "Yes."

"And you came here with me." He said nothing, but his gaze confirmed it. "And you stayed."

Kaonashi shrugged helplessly. "Yes."

Chihiro processed the new patch in her timeline before nodding a little, her neck stiff from trying to get comfortable before.

Kaonashi eyed her warily. "You're not leaving tonight, are you?"

She shook her head. "No. I just can't sleep."

He frowned minutely. "Try," he suggested gently. "You'll need all the sleep you can get if you're leaving this island tomorrow."

"Why are you so concerned about what I'm doing?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, you were the only one who acknowledged me. And I also know what Akane is capable of."

Chihiro took one more peek at the surf before turning around to walk back toward the cabin. Kaonashi relaxed and walked alongside her, furtively glancing over his shoulder once as they reached the door.

"I'm glad you're better," Chihiro finally said, surprised that remembering him as the gluttonous and frankly frightening creature he'd become last time she was in the spirit world didn't scare her more now.

Ducking to clear the doorframe, Kaonashi was surprised by her statement and accidentally bumped his head on the wood. Chihiro smirked at the bemused expression he wore, thinking it amusingly human. Kaonashi smiled and it was a very small expression, an embarrassed sort of reaction. "Thank you." A beat passed before he added, "Get some rest."

Chihiro adjusted her blanket cloak and yawned in response. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Chihiro."

As Chihiro made her way back to the bedroom and Kaonashi settled back in an armchair he'd curled up in by the extinguished fireplace, Zeniba lay in bed, listening to their exchange.

She shook her head a little. "Fools, both of them," she mumbled affectionately before shifting onto her side and proceeding to snore well into the night.


	4. By Moonlight

"Well, come on!" Zeniba called out across the cornfield. "There's two of you and you're going at a snail's pace!"

Chihiro rolled her eyes, making sure Zeniba wouldn't see as she did. However, Kaonashi noticed and smirked faintly, his mask falling lopsided on his raven hair. "If you pull up the roots, I can do the rest."

She nodded, dusting off her hands unnecessarily before moving toward the cherry shrubs. Scraping and digging the dirt from around one arm of roots beneath the ground, Chihiro loosed the root and shoved her trowel through it, wedging it free with a few hard swings. "Is this enough?"

Kaonashi glanced up when she spoke, but his eyes moved above her head and it was Zeniba who answered. "That should be fine," she said, adjusting her skirt to avoid the overturned dirt. "Hurry up. I need everything ready as soon as possible if you're still planning to leave tonight for the bathhouse." After a pause, she regarded Chihiro uneasily. "I would still much rather—as I'm sure would everyone who cares for you here—that you go on home."

Chihiro frowned and gave a helpless lift of her shoulders as she placed the severed root in the basket she had been working on with Kaonashi for the past forty minutes or so, gathering up a variety of ingredients from Zeniba's gardens. "I can't. Not while knowing what's going on here and having so many unanswered questions." There was the lingering implication of Haku being part of that reluctance and it was nearly tangible after her reply, but it remained unsaid.

Zeniba only made a small _harrumph_ behind closed lips and returned to the house.

Chihiro started burying the plant roots, looking back up to see Kaonashi staring at her. "What?"

He startled a little and she wondered if it was because he hadn't necessarily had a visible gaze for so long and onlookers had only seen the mask. He hesitated extensively and she was about to remind him she'd asked him a question when he said, "You're really… You're really going?"

She frowned. "Yes. I…" Chihiro found herself hesitating as well and, in hesitating, received a look of pure patience from the boy kneeling nearby. It shook her a little, as she scrambled to find the end to her sentence and he looked as if he'd wait as long as she needed. There wasn't much of that in the world anymore.

Caught off-guard, she finally completed her thought with a helpless shrug. "I have to."

Kaonashi mulled that over as he rose with his basket on one slender arm. "You do not have to… But I understand." He paused heavily. "I think."

She smirked. "That's good enough for me."

They made their way back to the house and set the baskets on the long dining table. Chihiro frowned minutely at the comparison, as hers looked terribly vacant compared to his. She was only distracted from this fact when an odd sound erupted beside her and she realized moments later that Kaonashi had seen her face and loosed an unpracticed chuckle.

Zeniba bustled in then, heaving a mortar and pestle along in her great hands, and glanced over their baskets with a speculative look. "Good. Leave me to my work now."

"What exactly is this for?" Chihiro asked, but she was promptly ignored as Zeniba began taking dried ingredients she'd spread over another section of the table and placing them by color in the stone bowl.

Chihiro grimaced and rolled her eyes, figuring she was making dye, but if keeping a secret was that important to her, she figured she would, in fact, leave her to it. As the cottage was relatively small, she found herself stepping outside yet again, gazing over the blue, blue water which had come back with the morning. From Zeniba's place of residence, the bathhouse was but a dark spot in the distance. From the pleasantly sea-kissed shoreline, it looked normal and foreign and so very tiny.

Not at all like the demon-reigned lair it had apparently turned out to be.

* * *

The day passed with little consequence for Chihiro. She remained outside and, after perusing the gardens nearly ten times over the hours that followed and circling the shore another eight, Chihiro made her way back up the main stretch of the gardens to the house.

The front room was quite the sight. Ground ingredient remains were sprinkled here and there where they'd fallen and been neglected, a spectrum of threads lay still or rolled unspooling over the wood, needles glittered amongst the disarray like silver fish in a rainbow river, and Zeniba sat amongst it all, Kaonashi timidly watching from a safe distance as his mask slid over one unflinching eye.

"What exactly—"

"Hush, concentration is… There!" Zeniba crowed approvingly, rising from her seat.

As all she could see was Kaonashi tilting his head to angle the mask off his face and give whatever Zeniba was cooking up an appraising glance, Chihiro circled around the old woman and peered at the table.

Pooled before her was a black garment that didn't look like anything particularly special.

Mildly disappointed, Chihiro looked at Zeniba. "What is it?"

Zeniba blinked at her before gesturing dramatically at the cloth. " _What is it_? I bust my backside to make this for you and you say _what is it_?"

Chihiro sheepishly glanced at the table to break eye contact. "Sorry. It just seemed a lot of work to make a black…something. Garment. Sorry."

Zeniba harrumphed and placed her fists on her hips. "First of all, the uniform for bathhouse employees is black. You'll need something black to sneak in. Akane's minions don't have a keen sense of sight as you shall see, so as long as you're wearing black, you should pass relatively undetected. That 'relatively' will be amended by the spell woven into the fabric. So this 'black garment' might be what will keep you alive on your journey." She pointed one sausage-sized finger toward Chihiro's nose. " _That_ is what this is."

"Oh," Chihiro murmured, her cheeks burning. "I apologize for my ingratitude. Thank you."

"Apology accepted," Zeniba said with a nod.

"Can I ask a question?"

"You already have." Chihiro hesitated at that, until Zeniba urged her, "Go on."

"When I ran into Lin… She had on a pink uniform," Chihiro explained. "But they're all supposed to wear black?"

"I would hope for her sake she changed before going back into the bathhouse," Zeniba noted. "Akane plunged the bathhouse into darkness in a frightening sum of ways, down to the very clothing her slaves wear on their backs. Her minions are very near blind, but they can feel the fear in your very soul. That's how they hunt, naturally, as they feed on nightmares… Akane has even altered _their_ manners."

"How so?"

"Baku traditionally devour the nightmares of any and all, yet Akane is strangely bound to this hunger as well. She devours energy and I have heard tales of her consumption of anything from nightmares the baku retrieve for her to the beings from which the nightmares are harvested. The most unnerving card Akane holds is that she is unpredictable. You must remember that."

Chihiro nodded fervently.

"The baku carry red lanterns much like those hanging on the edges of the bathhouse's architecture. The red light they emit will induce nightmares beyond your conscious conception of terror when cast upon unprotected eyes."

"Will closing your eyes make a difference?" Chihiro ventured, though she felt she already knew the answer.

"Unfortunately, no," Zeniba murmured. "At least not from what I hear." She cast a glance toward Kaonashi before continuing. "The use of magic—magic she is unaware of—would be your only hope. She is able to curse and can therefore sense her strain of power; however, she should not become immediately aware of this unless she were to search its aura. Your aura while you're wearing it.

"Chihiro, this cloak will protect you as much as I am able to make it. The rest will need to come from you."

Zeniba picked up the cloak as she spoke and Chihiro was dazzled by the sudden slew of colors that shimmered forth from the darkness. The iridescent, diaphanous material fluttered as it unfolded and Chihiro was almost surprised when it didn't slip from Zeniba's fingers and pool to liquid between them. However, the silken body of the garment ended with a gentle bounce and undulated with a ghost of movement, seeming to wait.

"It's beautiful," Chihiro finally said when she felt words swim forth.

Zeniba smirked. "That's what you get for judging prematurely. Go on, try it on."

Chihiro hesitantly took the garment and twirled it around to cover her shoulders, connecting the latch at the collar. The cloak fell to generously cover her to the floor, wrapping without leaving gaps at a standstill and bore a hood that sagged off the back of her head.

Zeniba had her turn to be sure it fell properly where it was supposed to before allowing her to take it off for the time being. She produced a second cloak from the bench beside her and held it toward Kaonashi. "You will be needing one as well, I suspect."

Kaonashi silently looked to the cloak before taking it with a grateful nod while Chihiro paled nearby.

"No, no way," she stammered, startling Zeniba and Kaonashi. "I'm going alone. I can't let you—or you, for that matter—endanger yourselves further for my sake."

"Chihiro, I'm afraid this is far larger than simply helping you," Zeniba said firmly. "Akane must be stopped. Your endeavor to go back to the bathhouse to find your friends is simply how it will start."

Chihiro chewed her lower lip and glanced toward Kaonashi, who watched her silently with dark doe-like eyes that broke her heart. "You don't have to go," she told him quietly, wondering why Zeniba thought he would want to come with her.

He looked at her for a long moment, eyes remaining perfectly still and trained upon hers, before he said, "I know."

* * *

The cloak was sewn with powerful magic. Chihiro could feel the thrum of its energy like a space heater every time she donned it.

Zeniba was unclear about what exactly that magic was or what it might do aside from provide her further invisibility amongst the bathhouse residents, but Chihiro found herself too fatigued by the thought of sneaking into that now-hellish place to persist.

"And you've got the food I've prepared you?" Zeniba asked her after avoiding answering again what the cloak did, much to Chihiro's disappointment.

Kaonashi nodded once, withdrawing his arm from beneath the black cloak that touched the floor despite his height to reveal the leather pack with their rations. It looked like hers, but it didn't quite give off the same energy. Maybe because she was human and needed more protection?

"Good," she murmured approvingly. "I'm afraid that, aside from the food and the cloak, I can't help with much else. The rest is up to you… If you're still sure about seeing this through."

Chihiro felt a flutter of unease in her chest, but she nodded. "I am." She couldn't let them suffer any longer if there was a way that she could help. And Haku…

She shook off the dread that leeched into her like a chill. _I can't think that way_.

"My last bequeathment is advice," Zeniba sighed, looking at the ground as the wind swirled around them outside her cottage. "First, find Lin. I'm sure you have already come to this conclusion, but she will be your best bet to navigate the bathhouse and find out if… Where Haku is."

Chihiro heard her hesitation and it just added to her anxiety, though she repeatedly told herself that it was a possibility she had to be ready for.

"The second is to go through the boiler room. Kamaji—if you remember him—will remember you. He may also have ideas about where Haku would be and how to get around the bathhouse now.

"And my final piece of advice would be to go home."

Chihiro and Kaonashi both looked surprised at her words, but she just leveled a serious gaze their way. "This is a fool's errand with a chance for success. More realistically, now that you seem set on going, my final advice to you is to make this trip one solely focused on stealth. This is not the time to fight. Seek out your friends, establish your strengths, and find out what you're up against. Only a true fool would storm that place with a fight in mind.

"And with that… Stay safe. And stay together."

Chihiro glanced at Kaonashi, who was watching Zeniba tensely until he felt her eyes on him. He nodded once to her and, as a pair, they turned and walked down the stretch of ground to the shore, where the tide had bore the sandy path toward the station, where the bead of light that was the midnight car shone like a beacon within the dark as the clouds cautiously obscured the moon.


	5. The Night Train

"It looked a lot closer back at the shore," Chihiro mumbled as she danced back from a lapping tide.

Kaonashi glanced back at her when she spoke, looking up at the wispy clouds overhead, backlit by the moon. The water touched his pale feet made paler by the celestial glow and wet the hem of his cloak. "We're getting closer. The light is much bigger than before."

"Says you," she sighed, picking at the hair tie on her really observed her this time and seemed surprised. "You took your hair down."

"Yeah, I usually wear it down now," Chihiro explained. "It feels strange to have it up."

Kaonashi mulled that over before nodding once, still walking down the sandy path. A few minutes passed between them before Chihiro let out a frustrated breath and looked toward the station. "Why does it look so far away?" she asked Kaonashi, who had stopped to see what was wrong.

He blinked. "You're in a rush, I suppose."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"What does here?"

Chihiro looked at him peculiarly. "That's…strangely self-aware of you."

He lifted his skinny shoulders. "I have moments."

She actually smiled. "So, what you're saying is that I need to not be in a rush?"

Kaonashi smiled back shyly. "Maybe."

"Well…," she murmured thoughtfully, weighing that option. "Okay. I'll try."

"Good."

They walked in silence for a time until Chihiro realized that to forget how little progress they were making, she had to be doing something else. Her only "something else" of the moment was striking up a conversation. "Can I ask who cursed you?"

He stiffened a little and she took that as a "no."

After a beat, Chihiro tried again, "So, um… Before that… Where did you come from?"

Kaonashi frowned infinitesimally. "You're asking the wrong questions."

"How can questions be wrong?" she countered.

He shrugged. "These just are."

Half a sigh escaped before she could suppress it. "Then what should I be asking?"

"What you're walking into, perhaps," Kaonashi pointed out.

"Zeniba seemed to answer all my questions on that," Chihiro replied, nudging a bit of sand with her toe before passing it by.

"She shouldn't have. You should have more." He almost sounded like he was scolding her.

Chihiro grimaced. "Then tell me what I should be asking. We're not going in there to do anything but sort out the layout," she reasoned with some impatience. "Any other questions I have will be answered by nosing around the bathhouse."

Kaonashi grimaced this time, but didn't speak again on the subject. When Chihiro observed that he was being more talkative than she'd ever seen him, he scoffed softly. "Zeniba isn't here to speak for me anymore."

"Is that weird? Being away from the cottage?" she asked. "You've been there a long while, right?"

He nodded.

"Did you venture out anywhere?"

"Not really," he admitted, relaxing some. "It was easier to stay there. And I help her a lot where she allows it. It's the least I can do."

"What do you mean it was easier?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know if anyone who has seen me in the past would recognize me now. But if they did, they would not react well," Kaonashi elaborated softly.

Chihiro found that her memory couldn't quite trace back to why, so she gave tying her hair back another try, the purple band glittering in the moonlight as she wound it around three times. There was some clarity after—whether that was a placebo effect or not remained to be seen. "Ah. Right."

He sighed a little and didn't speak again.

Chihiro glanced at the station and refrained from groaning when it looked just as far away as before. _It's impossible that we've only made it this far…_

She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes widened to see that the cottage was just a speck in the distance. Seconds after she'd turned, she bumped into Kaonashi's back—he'd stopped in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder and down at her before murmuring, "We're here."

"What? But that's—" Chihiro ducked around him and her eyes were bombarded with golden lamplight, the soft buzz of the station greeting her ears. "…Impossible." She looked to Kaonashi for an explanation. "We were so far away!"

"But look how far we've come," he pointed out, frowning as he looked to the conductor standing at the door. "Mm, an oversight…"

Chihiro looked at him and then at the train. "What oversight?"

"Hey! You coming aboard?" the conductor called to them, his vocal projection pristine.

Kaonashi glanced at her bashfully. "Zeniba didn't pack tickets in your bag, did she?"

Her jaw dropped a little. "We need tickets?"

"Of course—it's a train," he murmured, glancing around as the conductor continued to call to them, not sure if he could take off yet since they were loitering.

"Why is it that the most mundane things around here are just like they are back home, but everything else is ridiculous?"

"Depends what you consider mundane," he pointed out a bit nervously. "Nothing's free. No matter where you are."

"Excuse me, you two, but if you're not going to board, I—oh, sir, I apologize for the wait, you see I was just getting ready to see us off!"

The conductor was hurriedly reassuring a large spirit that was furry and white with a long mustache and pudgy arms. He barely fit through the door of the train car as he leaned out to look.

Chihiro recognized him—apparently he recognized her, too.

The spirit didn't leave the steps of the train—the car even tilted a bit with his weight—but he did extend an arm out toward her. She approached cautiously and her eyes widened when she saw tickets in his hand.

"Oh, sir, no! You may not have more than one person per ticket!" the conductor panicked, frantic until the spirit held up his other hand—which was clutching his own ticket. The ones he was offering Chihiro were spares. "Oh, well… I suppose… You lot better be grateful for this kindness!"

"Of course we are," Chihiro hurried to say, bowing deeply after taking the tickets. "Thank you so much, sir."

The great spirit gave a low rumble of acknowledgement before slipping back into the train car, the vehicle balancing out when he moved. Chihiro handed the conductor the tickets and he busily punched them with the gold tool in his hand, blinking when one didn't punch. "You have a spare," he said, handing her back the three tickets. "These are roundtrip as well."

"Thank you," she murmured, looking at the spare ticket as they walked onboard. She approached the spirit. "You gave us one too many."

The spirit just looked at her until she gave up and sat down next to Kaonashi on the bench. She awkwardly thanked the spirit again before sitting in silence, the conductor going to the front of the train to get them going. The train gave a soft lurch before beginning to make its way down the track, parting the dark water at the very edges of the rails.

When she glanced at Kaonashi, she noticed that his nails were biting into his palms. "You okay?"

He looked at her and his reserve wavered. "I—yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"You're a bad liar," she informed him gently.

A self-deprecating chuckle issued from his throat. "I'm still not used to speaking, I suppose."

"It's not a bad thing," Chihiro hurried to say. "It's just a fact. My dad always says that being a bad liar means you're genuine with your emotions. That you're a good person."

"Does he," he murmured thoughtfully, looking at his hands and loosening his grip. "Interesting."

Chihiro looked over her shoulder and out the window of the train car—it looked like they were flying through a void, the only evidence of movement being the moonlit ripples branching from the vibrations of the vehicle across the tracks. The sight seemed to make her mind foggy—or perhaps it was that they were drawing nearer to the bathhouse. Regardless, she looked back at her hands to steady her vision and adjusted her ponytail after.

And then she remembered why that spirit looked so familiar.

"Excuse me…"

The large spirit looked over at her with just his eyes.

"You helped me last time, didn't you? In the bathhouse. You…" Chihiro frowned as the memory swam back. "You helped me," she finished lamely.

The spirit stared at her before its huge white mustache lifted faintly in a smile.

Chihiro smiled back and bowed her head once more before letting the silence stretch around them, trying not to stare too hard around at the other passengers.

* * *

It was only when the train came to a stop that Chihiro realized she'd nodded off.

Her neck ached when her head snapped up and her hand instinctively went to feel at the nubs of her spine between her shoulders. "Ow…"

"We're here." She looked over at the flat tone that issued from beside her, realizing it didn't sound at all like a tone she'd come to associate with Kaonashi.

"Are you—"

"Adjust your cloak," he said tightly as he stood, his own garment flowing fluidly around him.

Chihiro hurriedly did so and followed him off the train, dodging a squinted glance from the conductor as she stuffed the tickets into her pocket under her cloak. "Do you know where we're going?" she whispered as they parted from the crowd.

"Zeniba advised us to go to the boiler room, so that's where I'm going. Do you have a better plan?"

"Kao, hold on—what's going on with you?" she murmured, reaching for his elbow as it surfaced within the cloak.

He jerked away on reflex and then paused, looking a bit ashamed of it. "Can't you _feel_ it?"

Chihiro's expression turned puzzled. "Feel what?"

Kaonashi frowned at her before hesitantly reaching forward—after he'd nimbly untied and lifted the cloak an increment from her shoulders, Chihiro almost collapsed.

"Chihiro!" he murmured urgently, falling to his knees with her and quickly tying the cloak back on.

"What…," she uttered a shaking whisper, tears stinging her eyes. "What _was_ that?"

"It's this place—let's go back," he said, hauling her up into his arms and turning back toward the station.

"N-No, we can't—not yet," Chihiro argued, though she didn't fight him. She couldn't help but feel less confident after feeling the true energy of the bathhouse. She couldn't imagine what it felt like inside—what it felt like to be a spirit working and living inside that place.

"I know you want to help your friend—your _friends_ —but they're beyond it. Akane is ruthless, everyone in there is under her influence in some degree, and Kohaku is _dead_."

"You don't know that!"

" _Everyone_ knows that!" he gritted, shouting as much as he could without drawing attention. "This is a fool's errand! I don't know why Zeniba even gave you an inkling that it was anything else!"

"Maybe because she knows the truth," Chihiro insisted. "Put me _down_!"

Kaonashi grimaced and let her down, but kept hold of her shoulders to get her attention. "Chihiro, _please_."

"We're already here, why shouldn't we at _least_ talk to Kamaji?! He knows everything that goes on around here, that can't be different! It's in the literal toes of the bathhouse, no one is going to find us there!"

He warred with himself for a long moment, his dark gaze flickering between her and the bathhouse behind her. At last, he gritted his teeth and shook his head. "No. No, we're leaving. And _you're_ going back home. You're at least going back to Zeniba's."

"Listen, if you'd just—"

However, Chihiro fell silent and Kaonashi's half-formed counterargument did, too, as a faint and then deafening roar split the air.

Chihiro's chest tightened and she whirled toward the sound.

And then she bolted toward the stairs.


End file.
